Powered hand tools for crimping terminals onto conductors are often bulky and relatively heavy, making them inconvenient and sometimes difficult to use. Because crimping tools must generate substantial forces to crimp a terminal, the tool must be correspondingly strong, which usually translates into substantial weight. Commonly, such tools utilize a wedge that is driven by an air cylinder between two rollers that are journaled on the ends of a pair of links. The other ends of the links have crimping tooling or dies mounted thereto. As the wedge moves between the rollers the two links pivot like a pair of pliers, causing the tooling to close and crimp a terminal. With such mechanisms, the shut height of the crimping tooling is controlled by bottoming of the dies. It is difficult to repeatably stop the wedge at precisely the same position every cycle since variations in the air pressure that is supplied to the air cylinder will cause the wedge to under travel or to over travel. Any such under travel prevents complete die closure while over travel causes additional stress to the rollers, links, and other structures of the tool. Additionally, such tools typically do not have a tape feed mechanism for automatically feeding terminals arranged on a strip of tape.
What is needed is a powered hand tool that is relatively small and light in weight that has the capability to automatically feed terminals arranged on a strip of tape, and that can generate the required forces to effect a high quality crimp. Additionally, the crimping mechanism should produce a repeatable shut height without over stressing the tool.